


Blooming Days

by boriskarloff



Category: EXO (Band)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23463853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boriskarloff/pseuds/boriskarloff
Summary: In which Xiumin is deeply suspicious of a strange pair of dancing shoes.inspired by EXO-CBX's Blooming Day music video!
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

Xiumin was very surprised to see a pair of shoes sprouting flowers outside his door when he arrived home one afternoon. The black and gold shoes gleaming under the midday sun did not belong to him. Neither did the sprig of red and yellow flowers jauntily placed inside. Xiumin’s eyes narrowed and his nose twitched. How they had gotten there, he didn't know; but he was certain they hadn't just walked on their own. 

“Whoever's responsible for this,” he said, in a voice that floated into the open window on the second floor, “you'll be sorry.”

Immediately Baekhyun appeared at the window, hanging upside down. 

“Who's going to be sorry, hyung?” he asked. 

Xiumin’s answer was a single raised eyebrow. 

Baekhyun’s head vanished from view, and then reappeared right side up, but he didn't even have the decency to look sheepish. Instead, he met Xiumin’s suspicious glare with a blank gaze of his own. Xiumin pointed to the shoes. A new look of surprise lit Baekhyun’s eyes. 

“Oh, those are bad luck, hyung.”

Baekhyun didn't notice the flicker of unease cross Xiumin's face. But it left as quickly as it had come, and he kept his expression neutral, careful not to betray any ignorance or fear. Infuriating, that Baekhyun! How could he have known the shoes were bad luck when Xiumin didn't? That rarely – no – never happened. 

“Bad luck,” Xiumin scoffed. “Since when do flowers bring bad luck?”

Baekhyun’s face broke into a cheerful grin. “I was only guessing.”

Xiumin hid his relief beneath another scowl. “Why leave them outside my door?” he asked.

“I didn't leave them there, hyung!” Baekhyun protested. “Maybe it was Chen,” he added.

Xiumin stooped down to pick up the shoes, but at that moment, they danced away from his outstretched hand. 

“What on earth-!”

Baekhyun's gleeful laugh bounced off Xiumin’s head, while he watched the shoes, dumbstruck. They twirled and tap danced, moving in dazzling circles, the flowers waving to and fro, while Baekhyun clapped in delight. Xiumin’s eyes struggled to adjust to this little dance routine, and his head shook slightly with dizziness. 

“Bravo!” Baekhyun shouted when the shoes became still once more. He turned his eager face to Xiumin. “I'll take them off your hands, hyung.”

“You fool. How do you even know they're mine?”

But as Xiumin opened the door to his house, the shoes raced inside, leaving a trail of petals in their wake. 

“Oh ho, so they are yours after all!” Baekhyun beamed. “I hope I can get a pair of my own.” 

🌼

Xiumin kept an eye on the shoes, which lay perfectly innocent and still by the bookshelf. A pair of magical flower filled shoes that danced of their own accord were worth too much trouble. He had a right to be suspicious. Why had they come here? And perhaps more importantly, who sent them? He planned to get rid of them, by sweeping them out with his broom, but the shoes evaded him. He spent about twenty minutes chasing them around with the broom held aloft, but no luck. He sank down onto the little sofa, breath spent, wiping sweat from his brow.

He supposed he would just have to wait. 

“You win,” he said to the shoes, placing the broom onto the floor. This round anyway, he thought. 

The next morning, Xiumin awoke with a plan fully formed in his nimble mind. He began his day and didn’t even spare a glance at the shoes. It wasn’t until he was dressed, with his own shoes on his feet, that he finally acknowledged them. He started to dance. As expected, the shoes followed his lead. They seemed excited, and he found himself smiling. There was a length of ribbon curled up in his fist. 

“I once read that story about The Red Shoes. They danced, but they needed feet in them.” 

He took one great leap forward and flattened the shoes with his feet. They tried to escape, but this time, he was quicker. He pressed one hand down and with the other tied the ribbon around them. Xiumin held the shoes up to the light and admired his handiwork. The flowers were drooping. Wearing a triumphant grin, he walked out into the sunny day outdoors. 

His grin faltered when he saw Baekhyun wearing the very same shoes he had just captured.

“My wish came true, hyung,” he beamed. “I found them outside my window this morning.” He frowned slightly when he noticed the shoes in Xiumin's hands. “So you caught them after all.”

“I'm starting to feel left out.”

Xiumin looked up. Chen was leaning on the window ledge of the third floor, chin resting in one palm, a bemused look on his face. 

“Don't,” Xiumin said. “I don't trust these shoes.”

“But they're so comfortable,” Baekhyun insisted. “I put the flowers in a vase. They can sing!” 

“Singing flowers,” Chen repeated, tossing a wistful look to the sky. 

Baekhyun had started to tap dance. 

“What are you going to do with those?” Chen asked Xiumin.

“Put them back where I found them.” He laid the shoes down in front of his doorstep, trying to ignore the feeling of foreboding in the pit of his stomach. These shoes were the least of his worries, the feeling said. And they were just beginning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a mysterious cat comes to live with Chen.

The cat was as white and fluffy as a cloud. That's surely where it came from; one of the endless clouds in the cerulean sky with gleaming eyes of ember. Now it was sitting on Chen’s windowsill. 

“Hello. What's your name?” he asked, though he knew there would be no answer. Questions in this place simply hung in the air. And this cat probably wouldn't talk to him, though he was sure it could. Maybe it would grow to like him, and then it would speak and reveal all the secrets of this place. 

“How about I call you Snowflake?”

Chen took its meow as a sign of approval. That entire day it lay curled up into a ball on his shoulder. 

“You're quite comfortable, aren't you?” he asked. Snowflake nuzzled his cheek. 

“What shall you have to eat?”

The cat purred. He leapt artfully from Chen’s shoulder and crossed the room to the window. He gave Chen one last look before dropping out of sight. Chen walked over to the window. The cat was pawing at those shoes outside Xiumin's door. 

“I wouldn't, if I were you,” he called down, knowing that it wasn't any use. He supposed that here, like anywhere else, cats did just as they pleased. 

The cat pulled and bit the ribbon, which came undone. Chen smiled. The shoes danced around Snowflake, who didn’t seem at all surprised. Chen moved away from the window. Hopefully the shoes wouldn’t trouble Xiumin any further.

Some time later, there was a scratching at Chen’s door. He smiled pleasantly when he saw Snowflake there, but his smile faltered a bit when he noticed the shoes. The cat strutted in as if it had been living there for years, but the shoes seemed to hesitate on the threshold.

“Where are you keeping your brain?” Chen demanded suddenly. Still, he stepped aside to let them in. They inched slowly through the door.

“Have you brought me trouble Snowflake?” Chen asked. The cat yowled. 

Chen thought the flowers looked a bit sad, drooping as they were. He scooped them out and placed them in a vase, as Baekhyun had done. He wanted to hear them sing of course. Their song was quiet, like a whisper. The shoes seemed to cheer up. They tapped along the floor, and Chen found himself charmed. Baekhyun had worn his shoes and nothing had happened to him. But Xiumin was the wiser of the two. Still…

The shoes kept bumping his feet. Chen gave them an indulgent smile. He put them on. The feeling began in his toes before slinking upward through his body. When it got to his head, his eyes clouded over and his brain became as immaterial as the clouds. A strange impulse seized him. He was going to jump off the roof.


End file.
